I just saw a pic of him with her and he looks like one of those weird teenagers who would go off. Sad situation but I dont remember anybody at my high school stabbing a girl who rejected him. Normal boys get rejected everyday and move on.

Nope. Normal boys/men curse you out, follow you, call you names, pour beer on you at the bus stop, throw things out of their car at you (like cigarettes), drive down the street beside you and pretend to run you over, put their hands on your body or up your skirt...

I just saw a pic of him with her and he looks like one of those weird teenagers who would go off. Sad situation but I dont remember anybody at my high school stabbing a girl who rejected him. Normal boys get rejected everyday and move on.

Nope. Normal boys/men curse you out, follow you, call you names, pour beer on you at the bus stop, throw things out of their car at you (like cigarettes), drive down the street beside you and pretend to run you over, put their hands on your body or up your skirt...

I just saw a pic of him with her and he looks like one of those weird teenagers who would go off. Sad situation but I dont remember anybody at my high school stabbing a girl who rejected him. Normal boys get rejected everyday and move on.

I just saw a pic of him with her and he looks like one of those weird teenagers who would go off. Sad situation but I dont remember anybody at my high school stabbing a girl who rejected him. Normal boys get rejected everyday and move on.

Nope. Normal boys/men curse you out, follow you, call you names, pour beer on you at the bus stop, throw things out of their car at you (like cigarettes), drive down the street beside you and pretend to run you over, put their hands on your body or up your skirt...

MILFORD, Conn. — Jonathan Law High School has not known much tumult. Students here are often too involved in sports, music or volunteer work to get in much trouble, staff members said, and the biggest source of friction is the annual game between the school football team, known as the Lawmen, and its crosstown rival.

Chris Plaskon seemed to thrive here. The third of five brothers, he was a joke-telling wide receiver on the football team who also played baseball and ran track. Though not immune to the stresses of adolescence, teachers and friends said, Mr. Plaskon showed little sign in recent months that he was troubled.

But a day after authorities say Mr. Plaskon, 16 and a junior, fatally stabbed a classmate in a school hallway, teachers and students were struggling to make sense of the incomprehensible: how a student whom many described as funny and popular could suddenly be accused of killing Maren Sanchez, 16, a well-liked honor student and his longtime friend.

“They’re looking for the kid in the black cape and the fangs and the black fingernails, but there was no sign,” said Mark Robinson, 38, who was Mr. Plaskon’s football coach before retiring last season. “He wasn’t a kid who was in the shadows. He was a well-liked kid. He was funnier than hell. That’s what makes it really strange.”

Mr. Plaskon was being held at a medical center under psychiatric evaluation, his lawyer, Richard Meehan, said on Saturday. He could be held there for up to 15 days and will then probably be charged as an adult, Mr. Meehan said. Mr. Plaskon was initially charged as a juvenile with murder, but Connecticut law allows the authorities to try minors as adults for serious crimes, Mr. Meehan said.

Ms. Sanchez, also a junior, was attacked around 7:15 a.m. at the high school on Friday, just before the start of class, the authorities said. She had stab wounds and cuts to her face, neck and chest.

The stabbing occurred by a first-floor stairwell in the math wing, the authorities and witnesses said, and staff members, including a librarian and a police officer assigned to the school, subdued the attacker and gave Ms. Sanchez first aid. She was pronounced dead at Bridgeport Hospital about a half-hour later.

On Friday, the authorities said they were looking into whether a dispute over an invitation to the junior prom, which was scheduled for that evening but was postponed, had anything to do with the attack.

For students and staff members, no possible explanation seemed sufficient. This sort of violence happens elsewhere, they said. Not at Jonathan Law High School. Not in Milford.

Milford, a town of about 51,000, is like a land apart, they said, separated by bridges from nearby Bridgeport and New Haven, two cities with vastly higher rates of violent crime.

The redbrick high school anchors a middle-class neighborhood of clapboard single-family homes, of streets lined with trees. A message board in front of the school reads: “Neither success nor failure is ever final.”

Ms. Sanchez, who was an athlete, was active in the drama club and served twice as class president, “was everything right as a student,” a statement on the school’s website said. Michael Mele, adviser to the drama program, said he and staff members had thought “long and hard about canceling” a coming performance of “Little Shop of Horrors,” in which Ms. Sanchez was to operate the puppet of the giant man-eating plant. Instead, he said, they would perform it in her honor.

“Let them grieve,” he said. “Let them come to rehearsal on Monday. If they have to cry for her for two hours, they can. At least they’ll be safe.”

Mr. Plaskon’s family had deep roots in Milford, students and teachers said. His mother attended Jonathan Law and her three brothers were all track and field athletes, Mr. Robinson said. Friends said his father owns a landscaping company. The family often took part in school fund-raisers.

Mr. Meehan, Chris Plaskon’s lawyer, said the family was reeling.

“They’re devastated not only for him but they’re devastated for Maren Sanchez’s family as well,” he said.

Mr. Plaskon was known as a bit of a jokester who would set off ripples of laughter in class. He enjoyed playing video games and dreamed of playing professional football.

He had dark days like any teenager and seemed down in recent months, friends said. He missed last football season — no one interviewed could say why — but had been training lately in hopes of rejoining the team in his senior year.

He had visited with the school guidance counselor on Wednesday, Mr. Robinson said, and the counselor told him nothing had seemed awry.

“He was an all-American kid, the kind of kid you’d want your kids hanging around,” said Gail Wells, the mother of a student who has known the Plaskon family for years.

Friends said Mr. Plaskon had been close with Ms. Sanchez since they were in middle school together. On his Facebook page, he lists Ms. Sanchez as his sister. A few months ago, he asked her to prom and she said no, several friends said.

A day before the attack, Joe Coury, 15, said he had lifted weights with Mr. Plaskon after school. Between sets they talked about the N.B.A. playoffs. Earlier in the day, Mr. Plaskon gave a presentation in history class about the political stability of Vietnam, but somehow turned it into a joke about Bill Cosby, said Herbie Pritchard, 17, who was in the class.

“That’s the way he is — hilarious,” Mr. Pritchard said. “Then the next day, I see Maren on the floor, blood everywhere and then Chris in handcuffs,” he added.

“These are people I love. I really don’t know how to process any of it.”

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